Love Life Music

December 9, 2010 – Ok, we are a go! Participation for this project is closed, and I’ve sent out invitations to the Dropbox account to everyone who showed interest. If you missed out on this project, we’ll get you on the next one. Hopefully this will all work out awesome, and will be the start of a cool collaborative community.

First off, I want to really thank you guys for your enthusiasm. I started this site a couple years ago, wanting to get a musical dialogue going. I wasn’t really sure how I was going to do that but I hope this project will be where it all ramps up.

Alright, enough with the sappy stuff, and down to the meat and potatoes of how I think this will go down. I’ve uploaded the starting loop into the Dropbox folder. It is a glockenspiel melody I recorded last week. In the course of this project, you are allowed to do whatever you want to it. I’ve CC-licensed it under Non-Commercial so if you want to use it for something else as long as you don’t sell it, I’m cool with that. I’d appreciate the attribution though.

Since I’ve never done anything like this before, the way this works may change as we see how everyone reacts. To make this truly collaborative, everyone will have a specific task in relation to this song. Whether that is laying down a drum or bass line, or mixing the track, tasks will be delegated by me. If you want to fill a specific roll, please let me know in the comments and I’ll try my best to accomodate. Please keep in mind that I still may not be able to give you the task you want. The list of tasks will change as the song begins to take shape. I will attempt to manage the project and keep everything in check, but I want you guys to feel free to cut loose.

Off the table currently are drums and mixing. The former claimed by Travis and the latter by Jon. Of course, the starting loop is also taken…after all I already recorded and uploaded it. For those who will be writing and recording melodies or filling in, you are able to do whatever you want as long as you respect the work of those who came before. In other words, feel free to create, but don’t bury others’ work.

As suggested by Jon over at AudioGeekZine, we will be working in Reaper. Reaper is a cross platform DAW that is available with full functionality even in the trial version. You can find it at www.Reaper.fm. If you need to pull the project into your own DAW to leverage your tools, go ahead, but be sure to export what you’ve done and re-import it into Reaper for the next person who works on the song.

If you are not part of the mixing team, please do not mix the track for the next person and especially do not “print” the mix so that it cannot be undone. As well, please keep the effects to a minimum unless it is a part of the sound you’re adding. Not everyone will have the same effects which will undo your work. If you must use an effect for a certain sound, please keep the original version without effects (muted of course) and “print” a version with the effect recorded on it.

As everything progresses, I will post updates on how the song sounds at every stage, probably using Soundcloud. This allows everyone to see what everyone else is doing, and also serves as a chronological timeline, which I think will be pretty cool in the end.

I’m very interested to see how this all turns out. When I produce music, I usually do everything from the songwriting all the way to the final mix. It never gets done the same way, or in the same order. With all the different ways we all create music, it will be interesting to see how our talents and weaknesses will fit together.

Ok, so the loop is out there. The first person to work on the track will be Travis Whitmore. I realize that the loops is simple and short, but I’m hoping his drums will bring a feel that the rest of the song can be built on. I expect the drum work will be short, and will only be played over the initial loop. After that, the song can be built, and we’ll bring Travis back near the end of the writing to flesh out the drums with all the other instruments.

For all those listed, please confirm your interest in the comments, and if I missed any of you in the Dropbox invitation, please let me know. Also, let me know what your preference is to work on.

I would like this track to be accessible to people who aren’t music nerds like us, so while it doesn’t have to be commercial, it would cool if it wasn’t too out there in the end. I’m also going to provide a theme that we should think about as we get to our tasks. The theme will be music you would enjoy listening to while driving. Could be a plane, train, or automobile; whatever works for you.

Ok, the track is now in Travis’ hands. Who wants to work on melodies next? Let me know in the comments. Goooooooo team!

Cool! I have accessed the file via Dropbox and it’s now synced to my iPod. I’m a guitarist so, within the theme of things, I’ll start working on some stuff for it. I, too, have never used Reaper, but the bass player in the group I play in is well versed in it. Thanks for the outline of things above.

The Home Recording Show is having a contest for a new intro for their podcast. I thought it would be cool to use this as an entry as there is a deadline to keep us on track, and it would be cool if they chose it.

The details are as follows:

—————————-

Dear Home Recording Show listeners,

We’ve decided to retire our opening theme song, and we thought it might be fun to see what you guys can come up with.

Any suitable style
Instrumental
30-60 seconds in length
must be loopable
Deadline: Jan 30 2011
Our favorite submission will used for the rest of the year starting February.

OK guys. I’ve created an arrangement to work with so it feels a little more like a song. I think everything got used except one part of the Rthm guitar which sounded off to my ear. I also added a couple cymbal samples to accent the changes more.

I think this is as good as the arrangement will get unless we change things up with a new beat.
I can’t think of anything else to add so its someone else’s turn.

Thanks for taking the time to arrange the tracks, you gave me a cool idea. After the four bars of just bass and guitar, I can hear a shift to C and D.

I uploaded a new mix in the 2011 folder called “key-change.” Let me know what you think.

Also, regarding the guitar tracks sounding “off,” I wasn’t planning on using the tracks for any type of final piece. They were strictly rough tracks that I planned on polishing up if you guys liked it. I figured no sense in going nuts if everyone hated it.

Regards,
Bryan

CD says:January 10, 2011

Everyone —

I think perhaps a drum breakdown or some kind of atmospheric section makes sense.

I’ll try to put together a couple of ideas that build on Jon’s arrangement.

Just wanted to update on the status of the project. There are no definitive plans on whether this will become a full length song but as it stands, it looks like it’s going in that direction.

I just contacted Doug, and he will be working on the track next. After we hear what he comes up with, we’ll see what should be added next. Also, I’ll update this post right now with an audio version of where the project stands courtesy of Jon.

Hey guys!
I updated the session with Dan’s synths and Travis’ new drums.

Has everyone had a turn?

@Bryan You can redo your guitar part if you want but I’d like to keep the project moving forward rather than backtracking again and again. If we change the key we have to redo all the other instruments so let’s keep it how it is.

Hi guys…sorry it’s been so long since I’ve even updated the site at all. I’m not dead so there’s at least that :D. I’m really not sure what to do with this project right now, it’s at a point when I don’t think that one person can finish it off.

What would you think about releasing the stem files for everyone to remix as they like. Then we could all release a track based upon the source material. Would it be cool if this was a contest? Not sure how we would score it, and I don’t have much to give away but maybe we could work something out. I have a Korg NanoPad that I took out of the box but never use that I could donate to the contest.